WiMAX targets 3G tech

Just when mobile operators are finally getting their costly third-generation (3G) networks up and running, a new wireless technology pushed ...

Just when mobile operators are finally getting their costly third-generation (3G) networks up and running, a new wireless technology pushed by the computer industry is about to mess things up.

At stake are tens of billions of euros in mobile telecoms revenues, as semiconductor giant Intel is putting its formidable weight behind WiMAX, a powerful wireless technology that gives fixed-line telecoms carriers a weapon to hit back at the mobile rivals who have long been eating into their voice revenues.WiMAX, an industry standard that travels under the alternative name “802.16”, and is also backed by Finland’s mobile phones and networks

vendor Nokia, offers lightning fast wireless data communications over distances as far as 50 kilometres.

Compare that with the first 3G networks which, although much faster than today’s mobile phone networks, are 30 times slower than WiMAX, and one 3G radio mast covers an area 10 times smaller than WiMAX.

Story continues below this ad

But mobile phone companies have shelled out 100 billion euros for radio frequency licences to run 3G networks and are currently spending tens of billions on the networks. WiMAX radio spectrum can be free, and carriers need fewer base stations to operate it.

Operators who do not yet have a mobile network can start one at low cost, using their fully amortised fixed-line networks to connect the wireless traffic to the Internet, and start grabbing back revenues that have leaked away to mobile rivals.

Analysys Research in Britain sees revenues from phone calls over the fixed networks dropping by 20 per cent over the next six years, partly because of more calls going wireless. “It’s a marvellous opportunity for fixed-line operators. One has to assume that WiMAX is a disruptive technology,” Adrian Nemcek, the head of Motorola’s wireless infrastructure division, told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of electronics trade show CeBIT.

WiMAX is such a hot topic that Intel’s executive board discusses its progress as much as three times a week, and by 2006 plans to start building it into its chip platforms, which power 80 per cent of PCs. (Reuters)